Mercury had now so nearly approached the horizon, that I knew there were but a few minutes more for me to see him; I therefore hastened to thank him, and say how much I should like to hear more of what he saw on this Earth. He answered

"I cannot tell you more at present, as tomorrow I shall be too far to the westward for you to see me; but ask the other planets, they will tell you as much, if not more, than I- Mars and Venus especially, being nearest your Earth. Farewell, dear child ! "

He was gone, and as clouds again thickened round, my observations were ended for that evening.

(25)

CHAPTER III.

THE

VENUS.

HE winter was now approaching, and I could

no longer go up on the leads as before. My father also decided on a visit to the south of France, to escape the coldest months in England, and we settled on Cannes as a resting place.

We had a lovely villa, with a piazza or verandah running round, covered with little yellow Banksia roses and scarlet passion-flower. Here we placed the telescope which we had brought with us, and found frequent opportunities in that clear air for watching the stars. deed, so anxious was I to make acquaintance with some more planets, that I hurried on the erection of the glass eagerly.

In

At last, one evening as I was looking over the sea towards the Esterelles mountains, I perceived a large star. The Sun had The Sun had gone down behind the deep violet hills in a glory of gold and bronze, and where the yellow of the sunset mingled with the blue of twilight, forming the tenderest green, shone this beautiful star like a queen of the night. It was larger than Mercury, and, like the Moon's, its light lay in a wake on the calm waters. Immediately I turned the glass towards it, and was delighted to see a brilliant disk with great dark marks: at the same moment, a soft and very melodious voice came

to me

"Dear child of my ancient friend, Terra, I feel that your eyes have sought me out. Mercury has told me that you have been talking with him, and that you would probably search out me also. I am called Venus, as I am the last resting-place of that goddess after she had to leave Cyprus, the beautiful island that the English nation have now taken under their protection."

I was very much pleased that her brilliant ladyship should condescend to speak in so friendly

a manner, and I begged her to tell me as much about herself as she could.

"Ah, those were times!" she said in a sort of soliloquy, "when Nature was beauty-and there was no art of beauty-when the human form was divine, and not cooped up, and pinched in whalebone vices; when drapery was neither glued to the encased body, nor flew out from the waistcentre like the darts of a firework. But I digress, you wish to know about myself."

Well, you see," she began, "though I and Mars are nearest to you of all the planets, I am, again, nearer to the Sun than you are, travelling between him and you, and so the heat at my equator is nearly double what you have, for the Sun appears nearly twice as large to me as he does to you. In consequence of this, my brightness is very troublesome to your great starobservers."

Are your days as long as ours?" I asked.

Within thirty-five minutes, but my year is only two hundred and twenty-five days long. My covering of atmosphere gives me a dawn and twilight not unlike yours, probably modifying

the great heat I should otherwise feel from the Sun."

"I should like to get nearer to you, and see if you have mountains and seas like ours," I observed,

"I wish you could," said Venus. "I have mountains, but owing to the difficulty of my extreme brilliancy, your star-gazers are undetermined as to their height,—supposing them to be at least ten times as high as your Mont Blanc. But I must be saying good-bye,' my setting time is nearly past. I will have a longer talk with you to-morrow. Good-night!" and she gently dipped out of sight behind the dark mountains.

The Moon had risen, and the still southern evening was alive with the whirring of night insects and the scolding of the frogs in their ditches, each trying to croak the loudest, as if each had a worse grievance to complain of than his neighbour.